Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
05DHAKA1699
2005-04-11 05:47:00
UNCLASSIFIED
Embassy Dhaka
Cable title:  

Media Reaction: Middle East; Dhaka

Tags:  KMDR OIIP OPRC KPAO PREL ETRD PTER ASEC BG OCII 
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UNCLAS DHAKA 001699

SIPDIS

FOR I/FW, B/G, IIP/G/NEA-SA, B/VOA/N (BANGLA SERVICE) STATE
FOR SA/PAB, SA/PPD (LSCENSNY, SSTRYKER),SA/RA, INR/R/MR,
AND PASS TO USAID FOR ANE/ASIA/SA/B (WJOHNSON)

CINCPAC FOR PUBLIC DIPLOMACY ADVISOR, J51 (MAJ TURNER),J45
(MAJ NICHOLLS)

USARPAC FOR APOP-IM (MAJ HEDRICK)

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: KMDR OIIP OPRC KPAO PREL ETRD PTER ASEC BG OCII
SUBJECT: Media Reaction: Middle East; Dhaka


Summary: An op-ed page article in "Daily Star" apprehends
that the Palestinian issue may slip from Washington's
priorities as the U.S. is engaged in greater Middle East
issues.
--------------
Middle East
--------------
"Palestinian State: Unpredictable As Ever"
An op-ed page article by M. Abdul Hafiz, former Director
General of the Bangladesh Institute of International and
Strategic Studies in the English language newspaper "Daily
Star" opines (4/11):
"... early in last February in a summit hosted by President
Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, Mahmud Abbas, the President of
Palestinian Authority, and Israel's Ariel Sharon agreed on a
ceasefire hoping that it would lead to peace. However, there
has been no progress in that direction. There is no
indication either from Tel Aviv or Washington that a new
peace plan is on the anvil. Only hope emanates from
President Bush's commitment to the revival of peace process.
In his state of the union address on the second February
last George Bush called for a two-state solution of the Arab-
Israeli imbroglio as before. Since then Washington has not
as yet come up with any plan laying down timetable for the
withdrawal of Israeli forces from the occupied territory and
the emergence of a sovereign Palestinian state.
As the US is at the moment engaged on bigger chessboard of
Mid-East politics that includes Iran in the Gulf and Lebanon
in the Levant the West Asian peace might have slipped out of
Washington's priority but the US will hopefully come up with
a 'new road map to peace' any time soon. What is however
more crucial in this regard is whether Israel will accept
such plan and cooperate with the peace brokers and how much
the US will be able to withstand Israeli intransigence --
given her strong lobby working in Bush Administration. The
doubt arises from the fates of many similar peace plans in
the past which all ended in fiasco.
The peace processes are in progress in one form or other for
last one and half decade. It began with the signing on 13
February, 1993 of a declaration of principles by PLO leader
Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. It
provided for the coming into being of a Palestinian state
ten years later by 2003. Rabin was murdered by a Zionist
fanatic and those who followed him -- Mr. Netanyahu and Ehud
Barak -- shot down the peace process itself with the full
help from the Zionist hawks of Clinton Administration -- Ms
Madeleine Albright, Mr Denis Ross and Martin Indyke. Mr Bush
announced an abortive 'new road map' in April 2003 providing
for an Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories and
the emergence of a Palestinian state by 2005. Bush himself
torpedoed the road map when he started pleading for Ariel
Sharon by saying that Israel would have to retain 'some'
West Bank land and as such the proposed withdrawal could not
be 'total'. Later he also described 2005 as an unrealistic
date for a Palestinian state to emerge.
In the meantime scepticism abounds as to what would be the
fate of another peace plan that may be announced sooner or
later."[sic]
Chammas